The Effect of Moment and Flexural Rigidity of Adherend on the Strength of Adhesively Bonded Single Lap Joints

Abstract

In the present study, mechanical properties of different single lap joint configurations derived from adherends with different thicknesses subjected to tensile loading were investigated experimentally and numerically. For this purpose, experimental studies were conducted on two different types of SLJ samples, the first type with identical upper and lower adherend thicknesses and the second with different upper and lower adherend thicknesses. For the first type, five different thickness values were tested. For the second type, the lower adherend thickness was constant while five different upper adherend thickness values were tested. The adhesive was prepared from a two-part paste. After the experimental studies, stress analyses on the SLJs were performed with three-dimensional finite element analysis by considering the geometrical non-linearity and the material non-linearities of the adhesive (DP460) and adherend (AA2024-T3). It was observed that, in single lap joint geometry, variation in the thickness of the adherend and the use of lower and upper adherends with different thickness values changed the stress concentrations at the edges of the overlap regions, affecting the experimental failure load of the joints.

KEYWORDS:

• Adherend thickness
• Adhesively bonded
• Aluminium and alloys
• Finite element analysis
• Single lap joint
• Stress analysis